>> please let us know about book fairs and festivals in your area, and we'll add them to our list. post them to our will at facebook.com/.tv, or e-mail us at booktv@c-span.org. >> next, jeff speck, city planner and former director of design at the national endowment for the arts, argues that urban centers should be designed to better suit the dashing than automobiles. the author focuses on small to midsized cities, such as providence, rhode island, which according to the author, if redesigned to be more walkable,

would improve the standard of living. >> good evening. what a great crowd. fantastic. i don't want to begin neglecting to mention a few things. one, i do really want to thank powell's books for being powell's books. and will continue to be powell's books, and to have me here. book tours are not with the use are not what they used to be, at least if you're me they're not. it cannot bill clinton or naomi wolf or whatever, it used to be that there were bookstores, as you probably know, bookstores all of the country. and now my book tours are basically town halls in seattle, house books here, politics and prose in d.c. one in new york, one in boston. and i said to my agent, frankly,

i'm not trying to go to more bookstores, hard work to travel all over. i have two kids and everything has changed. but i said isn't there -- i've got friends in subsisting want to see. i'm on the west coast. there really isn't powell's on the west coast. so i know there's a few bookstores in san francisco. what you have here is very special. want to acknowledge a couple of groups but if you're interested in urban design issues in this area, groups to talk to first problem is see in your casket, the congress for urban is him. i'm sure you can find an online. but they are concerned about all the issues i'll be talking about tonight and there's a group that for 20 years now has been pushing these issues forward the strongest. i want to acknowledge the mayor who i'm so glad he is sure mayor. because i've been following him and working in direct with him for many years and seen the great things he's done to i'm

sorry he couldn't be here tonight. but i'm sure there are different opinions in the room, democracy, but he's someone i admire tremendously. and i want to acknowledge the national threat institute. i'm on the advisory board. the national institute israel is in the world that pushes forward -- they invented, or we invented the return to the traditional neighborhood as alternative to suburban sprawl but they also greater a planning to become a design method which brought back and elevated to the highest possible level the involvement, the participation of citizens in the planning process. it is based here in your city is the group that works frankly internationally to share this technique. you have a real resource right here that you may not know about that's fantastic. now, what i'm going to do

tonight is, because i'm sure you'll find my reading ripping because the book is a fascinating, but reading them get old so i have a short reading and then i have a slightly longer reading. i'll start with a short reading which introduces the book. i'll talk a little bit, and then i will do a slightly longer reading, and then i have a rant. we will see how that goes. i'll make sure there is time for questions as well. so, let's begin. and i should say i just finished recording the book for audible.com which was really f fun. it's funny because i was a dj in college, and i found it a real tricky thing to do because, and also i've kids. on the one hand, you're reading your own book and say need to sound like a professional planner that you are. on the other hand, you know, we a book for audible.com is almost

like an acting gig and you want to the most -- i don't know this regard that the best voice, the best olympic i found this, i was undermine my credibility as they planned to go but i was going back and forth, and i -- am i after reading a book or am i a planner? to outright outside to walk that line as well. prologue, this is not the next great book on american cities. that book is not needed. and intellectual revolution is no longer necessary. what characterizes a discussion on season these days is not a wrongheadedness or a lack of awareness about what needs to be done, or rather a complete disconnect between that awareness and the actions of those responsibresponsib le for the physical form of our communities. we've known for three decades how to make livable cities, after forgetting, for four, yet we somehow not been able to pull it off. jane jacobs, who wrote in 1960, one over the planners by 1980

your but the planners have yet to win over the city. here i will interrupt myself to say, it's another factor, it's another natural occurrence that the very cities have places like powells where i'm invited to give talks are precisely the cities that do not need this book. and it is the places that don't have the pedestrian culture that leads -- that supports a place like powell's. it's those places that, you kn know, that's not who i'm writing the book for. i'll talk about this in a minute as i continue with the prologue. but what you may not know if you spend most of your time in new york or austin or d.c., or in portland or pretty much in seattle, serving in san francisco, these are not normal american places. i'll talk about that a little bit more. so you feel like, as they say,

wait a minute, ma we do have it figured out. so, the planners have yet to win over the city. certain large cities, yes. if you make your home in new york, boston, chicago, severson, portland, and by the way, they were so angry last night in seattle because like is this a real hate thing or is it just kind of a camaraderie, joshing me, elbow to the rich think it was kind of in between. but as you'll hear this is so much data about portland because of intelligence that's been collected at the just have to talk about it all the time. if you live in these places you can have some confidence that things are on the right track. but these locations are the exceptions. in a small and midsized cities where most americans spend their lives, and their decisions of local officials are still more often than not making their lives worse. this is not bad planning but the absence of planning, or rather,

decision making disconnected from plan. the planners were so wrong for so many years that now that they're mostly right, the are mostly ignored. but this book is not about the planning profession, nor is it an argument for more planning per se. instead, it is an attempt to simply delineate what is wrong with most american cities and how to fix it. this book is not about why cities work or how cities work, but about what works in cities. and what works best in the best cities is walk ability. walk ability is both an end and a means, as well as a measure. of the physical and social rewards of walking are many, walk ability is pressed most useful as a country with the vitale a most meaningful as a indicator of the vitale. after several decades spent redesigning pieces of cities, trying to make them more livable and more successful, i have watched my focus narrowed to the saw it as the one issue that seems to both influence and embody most of the others.

did walkability right and so much of the rest will follow. the discussion is necessary because, since midcentury, whether intentionally or by accident most american cities have effectively become no walking zones but in the absence of any larger vision our mandate, city engineers, worshiping the twin gods of smooth traffic and ample parking, have turned our downtowns into places that are easy to get to but not worth arriving at. outdated zoning and building codes, often imported from the suburbs, have matched the uninviting streetscape with equally antisocial private buildings, completing a public realm that is unsafe, uncomfortable, and just plain boring. as growing numbers of americans opt for more urban lifestyles, the are often met with city centers that don't welcome the return. as a result, a small number of forward thinking cities are gobbling up the lion's share of post teen suburbanites and empty nesters with the wherewithal to

live wherever they want, while most midsized american cities go hungry. how can providence, grand rapids, and tacoma compete with boston, chicago and portland? or more business particularly, how can these typical cities provide their citizens only of life that makes them want to stay? while there are many answers to that question, perhaps none has been so thoroughly neglected as design, and helicopter is a collection of simple design fixes can reverse decades of counterproductive policies and practices and usher in a new era of street life in america. the sixth of simply give pedestrians a fighting chance while also embracing bikes, enhancing transit, and making downtown living attractive to a broader range of people. each one individually make a difference. together they can transform a city and the lives of its residents. even new york and san francisco still get something's wrong but they will continue to push the country's best and brightest unless our other, more normal

cities can learn from their successes while avoiding their mistakes. we planners are counting on these typical places, because america will be finally ushered into the urban sentry not by its few exceptions, but by a collective movement among us everyday cities to be once again what cities do best, which is to bring people together on foot. so that's the prologue. this story for me begins really in 1987 when i was hired by bill. where are you, bill? hired by bill lennox and got to know about -- so you'll recognize a lot of the things today that i've stolen. he has given to me, as is given to so many people. and lives as well. they gave a talk back then it was called towns versus broader its catalog of his but he basically discussed the

differences between modernists, automotive oriented suburban planning and traditional neighborhood oriented. and i heard this talk, and immediately i said oh, my god, this is the best story i have ever heard. the reason is the best art i've ever heard was because i kind of knew in my heart. i knew i hated sprawl. i didn't like those places, the newer parts, the golden triangle. they always have names like that, the golden triangle. and i knew that i loved traditional neighborhoods and i loved them in the form of standing alone. these which is better places to be but i didn't understand what made him different precisely. i didn't understand what had caused them to become different. and, in fact, when the veil was lifted and i understood that it was not impossible in america to build new places along the lines of these older places, that was

a call to action. and for someone -- would have been very -- the i get there were larger social implications of design that had been impacting our lives dramatically as it came to learn more and more, became the basis for my work. so all through school i stayed in touch with them but i graduated in 1993, and basically made the pilgrimage to miami, believe it or not, not an exactly well-planned city whether offices happened to be located. and attach myself to them for 10 years and learned most of what has frankly made my career. the other big epiphany i had was this has to be a book. suburban nation, i pitch the idea, a, caicos where this book for you to i know you don't know him but i know how to write and these i disagree. at first they didn't respond. then they kept saying we don't see the value can understand why it's necessary, but we go from

town to town a place to place and we would preach the gospel about why streets need to be narrower and needs to be mixed in a transit was good and biking was good. we would win over the populace. and then we go to the next city and we would start all over agnew. i was like don't you people remember, we taught you this last week. but it wasn't, you know, it was in denver. it was salt lake city. we're starting all over again. so the purpose of suburban nation was to spread this message, and had a big impact on the but it got me my job at the national endowment of the arts which i'll talk about a little bit ahead in this. so as i said in the prologue, i never thought to myself as a walkability guy. who doesn't love to walk? walking is great. i'm a designer. and designers don't normally talk about stuff like that. but i just found that it was the heart of sony discussions that we're having that i became, i

started focusing my lectures on what was walkability. i was getting one of these lectures to the ceos for cities, ceos for cities is a nonprofit. they are hired, they are brought in by cities coming in, wealthy philanthropists, big foundatio foundations, often the same thing, large institutions, corporations and government get together, they hire ceos for cities and the how can we attract corporations away from other cities, or away from her own suburbs which these days is a much bigger issue. ..

i lectured to karros organization, and afterward she came up at my god, that needs to be about. i said that sounds familiar and that started the process. i don't do this anywhere else. because when the bookstore that you talk about the making of the object, which is important. like suburban nation, i then took four years and read everything because i knew a certain amount of stuff, but in planning there so many great best practices scattered all over the place. in order to present this book, i have to share with you if the people i got great stuff with. this is that going to be of long lists of things, but the guy

who's got parking entirely figured out has written a 732 page 12-pound work called the high cost of free parking. this one chapter in this book. chris weinberger workings has written amazing book called the option of urbanism which shows why everyone is funny to move into cities no. that's a chapter in the book. just made. is he here? group paddling resolution unchecked revolution can it really discusses the entire issue urban cycling in a comprehensive, wonderful way. i combined not from what i learned from hungry assemblies and from a time only two days. so the only other thing i have to say about this, which is the people you might find

interesting. he tries to be everything in one package and a street in a ripping away directed towards not professional at all but the layout and spewed this is not professional. this is written to excite normal people. look at the cover of this book. it's beautiful. know that no expense was spared at any point from the three stale added 10 for copy edits in six different covers we made before we picked this one in the amazing publicity department that got me on weekend edition about this test means the book has the potential to be a tool for spreading the message that was the goal of suburban nation. that's the goal of this book, a little trial double flame to your airspace, maybe bad analogy, and trying do with so many of us have been trying to do in person, but there's only

so many of my favorite pc people, so that's why you write books. we hope this is a vehicle for spreading the word. i'm going to do some reading and then talk no unshared -- talk more with no reading. i've chosen this route and called the general theory of workability because it talks about what the book is made of. as a city planner and make sense for new places and all places better. since the late 80s i worked on 75 plants for cities, towns and villages new and old. a third of these have been built or are well underway, which sounds pretty bad, but it's a decent batting average in this game. this means i've had my fair share of pleasant surprises as well as to learn from mistakes. in the middle of the work i took four years to meet the design division at the national

endowment for the arts. helped turn a program called the mayor's institute on city design, which puts leaders together for intensive training sessions. every two months, some are in the united states to get their mayors and designers, and tried to set the most pressing design challenge. as might be imagined working side-by-side with a couple hundred mayors, one of the time proved it greater design education than anything it done before or since. i specialize in downtown someone higher to make a downtown plan elect to move there with my family, preferably for a month. many recent symmetry city by you plan. more efficient in terms of travel and meetings, some in very expensive. second allows you to get to know a place to get to know every building from the street and block. is your chance to get familiar with locals over coffee connectedness in people's homes, drinks a neighborhood pubs and

chance encounters on the street. these non-meeting meetings are where most of the intelligent gets collected. these are all great reasons, but the main reason to spend time in the cities to live the life of a citizen shuttling between hotel and meeting facility is not what citizens do. they take kids to school, make their way to work on a stick for lunch, hit the gym or pick up groceries, get themselves home and considered evening stroll or after your. friends are not a contract anemone can get taken out for them in the main square. these are among the normal things non-planners do and i try to do them, too. a couple years ago while working on a plan for lowell, massachusetts, old high school friends joined us at merrimack street, the heart of a lovely night and century downtown. our group consisted for adults, when one toddler in a stroller and my wife's pregnant belly. we waited for the way to change. lost in conversation.

maybe a minute passed before we saw the pushbutton signal request. so we pushed it. the conversation and fans for another minute or so. finally we gave up and jaywalk. the same time a car coming from the corner of 45 miles an hour on a street widened to these traffic. the resulting nearness fortunately lets no scars, but will not be forgotten. stroller jaywalking is a surefire way to circumvent peer, especially when it goes to write. only consolation messiahs in a in a position to do some in about it. as i write these words, i'm on the road with my family. nothing new baby in a sling and a toddler alternates between stroller and his own two feet depending on train and frame of mind. interesting to compare experience with the one in lowell and more to the point in most american cities. brown at first glance seems

hardly inhospitable to pedestrians. so many things are wrong. had the streets by centrex you must let us what, pavement uneven and ready. handicapper and stylishly absent. posters become frequent. i hear there are seven. need i mention the drivers. yet here we are among so many pedestrians, tourists and locals alike making our way around on our toes yes, but enjoying every minute of it. this optical course is somehow a bang up for rockers recently readers of those lonely travel guides is one of the world's top 10 cities. roman struck a fraction of the mouse americans do. if friend of ours who came to work in the u.s. embassy ride a car when he arrived. now sits in his courtyard, a target for patients. this tumultuous urban landscape which fails to meet any conventional american measure a pedestrian friendliness is a workers paradise. so what's going on here?

certainly competing for foot traffic and a poem of price services the city began to certain advantages. the lonely planet ranking is more a function of spectacle and pedestrian comfort. the same line information in our modern american way would hardly compete. think las vegas. the main thing that makes roaming the other winners, venice, boston, barcelona, amsterdam, prague, paris and new york walkable is a legal fabric of everyday collection of streets, blocks and buildings that tied the monuments together. despite its technical failures, rumsfeld work is superb. when those aspects missing from the discussion in most places. this is because the discussion has been about adequate and attractive pedestrian facilities rather than walkable cities. no shortage and even a fledgling

field of study focuses on impediments to pedestrian access and safety, mostly in the toronto suburbs. doctors are hopeful but inadequate. same for urban beautification programs such as the famous size of the 80s, breaks, banners, bollards and burns now grace many abandoned downtown. lots of money and muscle had gone into improving sidewalks, crossing signals, streetlights and trash cans. how important are these things in convincing people to walk? if watching this about safe pedestrian zones, why did 150 main street pedestrian ice in the 60s and 70s failed immediately? clearly there's more to walk in the making face and pretty space for it. the pedestrian is an extremely fragile as pcs. generic coalminer ability. this creature tries it multiplies. but creating those conditions

requires attention to a broad range summer satisfied than others. enumerate in understanding criteria is a project for a lifetime. admit it behind five minutes for every work in progress. it's presumptuous to claim to figure it out, but since i spent 10 trainor reckon it's worth communicating what i've learned so far. since it tries to explain so much a call this the general theory of possibility. the general theory of walkability explains how to be favored in what has to satisfy four conditions. has to be useful, safe, comfortable and interesting. each quality is essential and not alone sufficient. he's so mainstream that aspects of daily life are located close at hand is organized in a way that joaquin serves them well. safeness history has been designed to give pedestrians a fighting chance against automobiles for someone to be safe, but feel safe, even tougher to satisfy.

comfortable means building some landscape shaper mean streets into outer living rooms in contrast to wide-open spaces from which usually fails to attract pedestrians. unique buildings with friendly faces and humanity are balanced. these four conditions way of thinking about the series of specific rules further organized into what i call the 10 steps of walkability. she got very pleased to add up to a complete prescription for making cities more walkable. first we must understand it is not just a nice idealistic notion, rather simple and practical minded solution to a host of complex problems to face as a society, problems that undermine our nation's economic bitterness, public welfare and sustainability. for that reason the book is listed to sign treaties than essential call to arms. why we need walkability so badly as the subject of the next session. but essentially have is a two-part book.

you have the three reasons why we need walkability bush's health and sustainability and then he had the 10 steps of walkability, which are, for example, step one for cars in their place. step two, mixed uses, step three get perking right and that translate work. i'm not going to talk at all about the 10 steps because you won't buy the book and they're in there for you. very little of our technical, although every one of them is described in great detail botanic diets that make them interesting. what i want to rant about -- it's a little warm. what we need walkability so badly. so like new urban colleagues, i'm a designer and i care about

this and i thought about these things from an aesthetic point of view. what kind of places with the best? what feels the best? that makes me the happiest and that's how most of us got into this. then we started to notice because the first urbanist community became known as the poster child for her to but the is strong and participation during robert putnam's bowling alone in how society was the bonds of community weren't as strong as they were in traditionally organized places. design arguments, aesthetic arguments and social arguments. but then a big change happened 15 years ago, which is that the economy started talking. nobody lessons to planers. wish i'd been there when about why we feel certain answer certain ways.

burma since then they say this'll make you for a richer. the doctors started paying these communities are killing us, which i'll get into. finally, even more recently the environmentalists figured out the city was the way to save the country and the countryside. so those three issues, none of which are original research on our part from the basis for having a much more legitimate and arguable support for city life over suburban life. so what are they? the first question to ask is where do people want to be in america? portland is a prime example. statistics are amazing. during the 90s, your millennial population increased by 50%, five times the rate. educated millennial swing it so much higher because of the environment offered.

the first thing interurban competitiveness for community competitiveness is where do people want to be and he's moving cities. every city i work in, they want to attract engines of lunch premiership. 64% in favor they want to live, then they moved their look for a job. 77% say they want to live in america's urban cores. why? and massive cultural shift. when i was young, one out of 1219-year-olds opted out of getting their drivers license. now it's one out of four. the tv shows, chris weinberger asked me, what tv shows teach you watch growing up as an approaching 50? i watch rady bunch, partridge

family, gilligan's island, all suburban tv shows. there is hawaii five o come was hawaii 50, streets of san francisco, crime television shows in the city. and of course there was lucille ball and the honeymooners for the city on this presence outside the light well of the kitchen dining. we took the kids -- what did the millennial screw up watching? friends, "seinfeld" and sex in the city. i grew up in the suburbs and they grew up in the suburbs, but my complacency but in the suburbs and idealizing was replaced by their longing, wanting something they do not have that's one reason why these people are so much more oriented towards cities. richard florida talks about how kids don't really want to have cars anymore and they don't want to own homes anymore.

these are seen as burden and limitations. as long as they connected on their handhelds, they want to have as much freedom as possible. they want to buy a good teacher insisted they don't need to use the card. they are moving cities that offer than this lifestyle, not the cities they required an too heavy automobile. what's the single largest demographic moving cities as their parent, the front end to mars. .5 million are turning 65 every year and that would be the case further next 20 years or so. they don't want a yard, don't they do because they have to clean and heat. they certainly don't need schools that no one else had not yet thinking about schools. they are looking for what sociologists identified as the naturally occurring retirement community. my own parents left belmont

hill, massachusetts two years ago in the two lexington center, massachusetts, which is loaded with three different hair salon for my mom and tons of restaurants and coffee houses they can access walking on foot and this tendency in america but they all drew a person who should not be driving refuses to let go of car keys because they know the moment you take the car keys to be members of society. they can go to these places. just a nice place for all people who have money choose to live because it offers them his tremendous lifestyle. but these placers are not available. we haven't been building for 50 years. in atlanta, only 35% of the people who want to live in every joint and a setter walkable can find and to that end. chris weinberger describes this

as the next great economic boom. they have to sell their houses and get out. but they'd much rather be in a city and the ones that need have disposable income, exactly the kind of customers who bought for your stores and your tax base in the city. joe cortright also based in portland has done a lot of research into what that means and he took walk square based in seattle. raise your hand if you know about box score. most of you. reteach address in the world. i guess it's america. google maps data in terms of its workability. so joe cortright did a study and found it depends with 50 year reign, but every point is worth on average added 100 about $2000. every point on a 100-point scale

figures in d.c. an empty lot is worth $200,000. people are paying more for these places. the premium for walkable housing versus drivable housing is about 50% in seattle, 150% of denver, 200%. the exact same footage rather than outside the city. seemed true for office rents. not the same ratios. in the d.c. area inside the beltway have jumped to 27% higher than the best office outside the city. so more and more people want this and they want to pay for it if your city has set for them. but the other great discussion called portland's workability dividend is what happens to your

community when people get to drive less. money spent on motoring 80% is your economy and most goes overseas. a lot to places where people don't like us very much. portland is the only american city i know that has this statistic basically stopped lengthening commutes in 1996. a couple of really smart things other people didn't do. while most american cities were really not your streets and building more highways, portland created a skinny seats program you may know about. most american cities accumulating an unending spare tire at suburban straw, its urban growth boundary. while most cities didn't give a whit about bicycling, portland made a think about a $300 million investment over 20

years. people were shocked when i tell them 25 years ago for it and did not look much different in terms of how many bikers they were uninterested in the cost of one cloverleaf. one half of a cloverleaf. a highly cloverleaf cost twice as much is your entire break in investment over the past 20 years and is the result portlanders bicycle 15 times as much as the rest of the country. decisions were made that cost on to peak in 1996. as a result you all drive 20% less than the rest of america in equivalents i cities, which translates into four miles or about 10 minutes a day. joe cortright versus four miles into 1.5% of gdp and translate 11 minutes into another 2% of gdp. 2.5% is now not been thrown away

and shipped to other places because of those decisions you've made. portland is known for having the most roof racks in america, independent bookstores, strip clubs in america. these are all exaggerations, but they point to the fact you're consuming recreation more than most other places. oregonians pay more in alcohol than the rest of america, which makes it rather try the months. but it's a different society because of the choice you've made. producing most of the money in your housing and housing us about his local investment as he could make. if it will boost the local economy. then there's the final economic reasons, physicists like molecular physicist have turned their attention to cities of theoretical exercises and said what type causes of our product

give a what product cavite and the ones who've gone as far as it are convinced technically but we all know when her heart, which is the reason cities exist as when we come together, were more days. if tantalizingly difficult to prove that it's the strength of cities and not make sense economically stronger. but glaser talks about that a lot. david brooks talks about how when someone gets a patent, there required to say orestes heywood at the pet that influence to? almost always within 25 miles of the patent here. malcolm gladwell talks about the french impressionist old friends who hung out in the same buyer. they all trained the same absinthe. you know, movements are collected and made by people in proximity. people talk about if you're in a

european capital come you can get five minutes done in a day. if your antenna, two meet infinity because those the time the traveler further and faster. there's all these reasons i cities make a smart competitive and people will be wanting to move to cities in the near future. more households now with dogs than children and it's going to continue that way for a long time. but the next 30 years, that's the dominant trend. i'll try and go faster with the other two. the best day to be a planar and america was july 9, 2004, when johnson, from ken lawrence frank came out with a book called urban sprawl and public health. but the book did this person technical epidemiological meet on the sociological bones we've been arguing about.

here's why cities can save us. by far, the greatest aspect of the epidemic river health challenges is the obesity epidemic. not that obesity itself is the problem, that illnesses the city of these two. diabetes now consumes 2% of our gross national product. a child born after to test and has a one in three chance in america of becoming a diabetic. now look at the first generation of american going to live shorter lives than their parents. that's not a huge surprise to you. we've all been talking about the wonders of the point where they started in the 40-ounce service people are drinking. only recently has the argument -- have cities and then comparing diet and physical

inactivity. one was called gluttony versus slot. another doctor at the mayo clinic for patients in electronic underwear and measured every motion chemists at a regime, said it that way, started counting calories than as some people thought that another student. expecting some metabolic factor of work, they found the only thing was the amount of daily cavity. the new flickr books like the bluestone. i forget his first name. dan buettner and the blue suns. when people live live the longest? you put it in a book and sell millions. the number one rule, move naturally. don't become a weekend warrior. don't run marathons and triathlons. find a way to build normal motion into your everyday life.

who's going to change work routines to dallas to go from an accountant to a lumberjack? that's not going to happen. they say well, you know, biked to work or walk to the store. one thing the book forgets to mention is that half of america you can't biked to work and you certainly can't walk to the store. because you live off a high rate the stories off of. it's fundamentally how we build communities in the long run. in the short run is where you choose to live and that's a choice you make. it's nowhere more obvious than any other big discussion, which is car crashes. car crashes are funny because on the one hand we naturalize it. would like is a part of living. one and 200 chance that i'll die in a car crash anyone up for that i'll be seriously injured. nothing i can do about it. or alternately, we feel like we're in charge of her feet on the road.

worker drivers. 85% of people in the hospital recovering from accidents they themselves cause rated themselves as better than average drivers. all that's going on, but the fact is it's not the same all over the world and it's not the same all over america. we have a rate for 14 out of 100 are dying every year in car crashes. in england, it's five out of 100,000. no one has helped the crashes we do. one beside that of 100 passing. in new york city's three out of 100,000. york city has saved my life in traffic a month since september 11 been lost on september 11. if our entire country which he shared new york city's accident rate, we save 24,000 lives a year. a big difference between urban living in suburban or rural living in terms of that aspect of our lives.

again, the short-term we can build places to be safer. and the short-term we can decide to live in more urban environments. a wonderful study, jackson famously asked the question, in the circuit city are you most like he to die in a pool of blood? that's how he puts it to his audiences and they compared murdered by strangers, crying to car crashes in portland, vancouver and seattle in your 15% safer in the inner-city than in the wealthy suburbs because the combination of those two. and finally, asthma. talks about asthma? 14 americans die every day to day basis, to huge amount. three times the rate of the 90s entirely due to automotive exhaust. 90 whatever%.

pollution is that what used to be. thickest places are those which are the most car dependent. in phoenix full text four months months out of the here to help the people are not supposed to leave houses because of the amount of trading going on. what's the solution? the city. finally, the most interesting discussion may be is the environmental discussion, which has turned 180 degrees in the last 10 years. even within the carbon footprint in the project which maps are carbon footprints are purebred is bad, green is good. look at the united states and it looks like the satellite night sky of the united states, hottest around the cities, cooler in the suburbs and coolest in the country. but that measure co2 per square mile in 2001, scott bernstein at neighbor for technology in chicago said would have been in

measuring co2 per mile and the measures co2 per person. we can choose to live in places where we pollute more or less. if you per household, bad endocrine just flip, absolutely change places. by far the healthiest place to commence in within the city. and have nice furniture to fossil fuels of people in dallas, for example. to use it to the electricity. they are heating and cooling neighbors. apartments are attaching, but more importantly is the less driving their doing. transportation is the greatest single contributor to most civilians greenhouse gas. and our daily lives the biggest rooster can make i built the house in washington d.c. and the strictly in the shows on sustainability. because solar panels, hot water heater, super insulation, bamboo flooring.

bible with earnings does this supposedly about her name and may contributes less co2 to the environment than if it were left to decompose naturally. but of course i have the energy lightbulbs. to change an entire house to energy saver lightbulb saves as much electricity -- i should say, as much carbon in a year as the need to walkable neighborhoods they spent a week. the whole gizmo green gadget discussion, what can i buy to make myself more sustainable is the wrong discussion. should be where can i live and how can i live to contribute less than the answer is city. fundamentally the opposite of the american eats those from jefferson on, cities are the morals, health, freedom of man. if we continue to pile upon ourselves and cities in europe, we shall take to beating one another as they do there. i was jefferson.

and that continued to make sense back in the 1700s of the biggest bipartisan transportation was fertilizer. that's not the case now. it's a longer discussion. all through a lot of discussions. there are national crises. with a national economic crisis, which is only going to get tougher. a national health crisis and the sandy proved all too clear a couple weeks ago, global warming is beginning to affect us dramatically in our not talking about stopping it. obviously the less we have, the better we are all in the more we become an urban society, the more we can do to solve these problems that are at the center of our challenges as a nation. so that is what i wanted to tell you tonight. thank you for your attention i welcome questions. hot hot

>> you mentioned anything sport and does rate. what are some of the things we could do better? >> i was waiting for the question. >> you guys are doing such a great job and i'm not an expert on portland. i'm an expert in limited cities that i've worked to. i do have the impression. i say this with great trepidation. i do have a concern for your advocacy for bicycles and construction for bicycles is another form of high engineering and the london streets are redesigned by specialists with a single-minded focus on bicycles that may be undermining the ability. i'll be very specific. when you remove parallel parking -- let's talk about how great parallel parking is. a barrier still that protects the sidewalk from moving cars.

it's a potential conflict that causes driving prices down because someone may pull in and out. it creates walkers and you cannot have a business to five without a right in front. i don't think it can support retail without parallel parking on the curb in front. so when you remove the parable parking in order to insert a bicycle facility, you are in some way strafing alternative form of transportation that many people use, that everybody uses such are taken away. i understand and i know that here in portland bicycle facilities are late in important nation but the regional bicycle plan so there is an understanding of certain street serving different purposes.

what i'm hearing and may be inaccurate accurately, but what i'm hearing is the mandate in bike lanes is becoming more comprehensive and taken away peril parking brake doesn't necessarily -- where it shouldn't necessarily go away. the one thing that characterize some attacks so far as no one disagrees that anything and that's really dull. so please know that i am willing and able to hear the other side of it. i just worry about commies got the best transportation planners in america, so i hope it can be forgiven for giving them a hard time. transportation planners are specialists and not necessarily working in the interest of the general issue, which us good people in the street of shops and businesses succeeding. that's about the only thing i can find fault in. should we go over here?

way for the macs we can be on c-span. >> to think harder of the deal with that ability in portland and walk ability that york is a chinese city and you're not find further baikonur pickup truck and they can somewhere, in portland you can take many places, not heavy traffic. does she think that the general trend? a smaller city for them will have more baking in larger city? >> new york has made great gains. your statistics and you like wow, so many more bicycles in new york and didn't go to can hardly see bikers because they are doubly nothing. but in fact it's better than that. you see bikers and it's growing every year and it's if you can. used to be the only bankers in new york with a dangerous one to knock you off the sidewalk was to walk off the curb.

but i think new york is increasing baking in a way that will become -- i have a lot of friends in taking over your bound here for people who want to bike and particularly with the separator preference by claims asserted their company you are going to see a market increase. the main point all over america about 18 and i used it as if example, but we see all over the place. long beach, california, minneapolis rates for using the site as a winner or designer come to your weary to say build it and they will calm them a lot of times that that's wrong. the experience in america with bike lanes is absolute lee a build it and they will come situation. obviously by slicks ready to become a bicyclist who are just waiting for the facility, particularly the separated land is going to allow them to make a choice made here in portland to join that group. used to advocate a lot against

bike lanes because they need streets wider, but a completely change my tune because of what i've seen happen here. adiabatic >> he has to fixity a small town are different. i'd never thought of it and where to discuss things they haven't thought of. i do not think her bigger cities are prohibited from coming to baking cities. from adidas, california, best in the u.s. in terms of percentage to portland or minneapolis seems easier. such a connection with nature. you're on a trail have been a recreational experience, which is fantastic. next question. right here is close to. it seems unfair, but i was told to not make the kind of too far. >> he spoken about the infrastructure that simulates

driving a bicycle infrastructure. but they took the structure of walking and complete streets. i wonder to what extent do public restrooms stimulate active living, healthy aging childhood fitness and workability? the u.s. seems not to be mentioned in planning literature. >> or in my book. >> public restrooms have a pretty abysmal history in the u.s. have been maintained. whenever you propose something is a planar come yet at the beginning built and he's going to take care of it. for some key exceptions like in chicago are the big cities to have well-maintained public restrooms at how people stay out of the public from longer. but there's a separate argument, which is what we rather see people and businesses and buying a coffee in order to use the restroom? is usually turned down at a restaurant in brooklyn wouldn't

allow me even to give them money to use the bathroom because i didn't have time to sit down and have a meal. most communities that don't have public restrooms and the utc benefit to local businesses that people come and then patronize the store is because they feel they're owed them something. so there's two sides to that. but you're right. we haven't done much thinking about it. >> allergists encourage you to do some sense they are also public spaces and parks and whatnot were workability are transfected by transportation oriented workability for those who need it. >> , thank you. right behind you there. >> hi, jeff. very vocal. the largest industries in the portland nature area, at least those that are part of the

treated sector that we really promote her places like intel and make key, neither of which is particularly walkable for most of their employees. in fact, most employees that here in the pearl. >> you have your something similar to what david cisco, which is even though corporations are in the bell, the city are used to go to work is now where your feet to go to work. >> well, to finish the question, and he did ask when urban land institute gave me the chance for one of the vice presidents of intel, whether they were going to follow the example of amazon and several other large corporations that if recently located the campuses and much

more walkable urban environment. now, in fact they have instead started to put billions into building the campus in hillsboro it's a very exurban campus. so i'm wondering, are you finding many other examples of large industries that are in fact building a urban campuses thinking about the kind of things you're talking about here? >> a search about a campus in a city the authority bill. utc companies moving jobs in town. united airlines, for example, moved his ton of jobs, thousands of jobs to downtown chicago. but it's a bit trickier. you can't start fresh. i think -- again, i'm talking

about trends. trends start slowly and move slowly. you look at what is now as opposed to a couple years ago as the market changes and does create markets. but i think one of the main reasons by american corporations opting for the inner cities to suburbs is best for people moved to the end of suburbs follow them. the companies followed them. i think as more and more people live in cities, will start to see companies followed them back to the city. in most american cities, there are undervalued greenfield industrial areas were as possible. the south lake union district in seattle has a great example. they did what you guys sold them to do an amazon is fair that bill and linda gates foundation nuclear. and that's a trend we are

seeing. it's a trend that's not like it's going to change immediately tomorrow. >> merrie czarnecki, one of the things that i think happens in every city in u.s.a. is a big elephant that's in the room and i think that's our freeway to boulevard issue that's their interest in promoting. i wonder if you have any examples of places in the world to turn that around and have convinced people that it's economically viable and exciting to approach that because i think it parallels and nobody wants to talk about it. >> the congressman knew everything is a big campaign for a number of reasons. one is their chief now is john norquist, famer maher of the

lucky has worked on the tear down of our freeway in milwaukee. i neglected to do tonight but i say i do in my book, which is every talk, talk about induced demand and statistics about how building roads creates more traffic. it's all proven. no one doubts and it's on the boat. no one doubts et cetera engineer every day in every city. the leadership of the profession has admitted a few at 10% more road capacity and a year, 4% will be gone. people adjust their behavior to use that road. interestingly, as marrying alice, it works in reverse, too. so in the west side highway in new york was falling down and when the freeway this pole dancing to cisco, everyone feared it, get.

was going to have been to all the strips? they just went away. and i talk about this in the book, the big discussion about how the mayor brought that to the institute. he said we've got to replace the thing. what should we do? he said yes, though the tunnel? no, you don't get a tunnel and here's why. even though he was a great environmental would not allow salt on the road, we did not convince him about induced demand. he spent quite complicated in building the tunnel anyway and i don't buy the arguments for that. what is amazing if you look at san francisco and other examples is boulevard's creative real estate value. make a beautiful boulevard and everything around becomes more valuable. hiway center real estate value and elevate multilevel highways

to serve real estate value. which he signed him to cisco and when the central central freeway can done us a whole bunch of lighted properties that were worth anything that became valuable about this tax dollars went to an increased property taxes in a state for the roadwork now 10 times over. so what i say in the book is if you have any elevated expressways crumbling, once they start to crumble, it makes sense to tear them down. if they're not crumbling that, maybe you shouldn't bother except look at the possible tax revenues to make a for it if you do it right away. it's a hard sell. there's a number of counterintuitive realities about how people behave, especially surrounding cars. almost entirely surrounding cars, that make it hard to do thing. probably the biggest surprise for me the book was the city

saphenous congestion have the least pollution. do i have to say it again? besetting traffic and see the air wavering from the exhaust of all these cars sensei can the planet survived this? this is horrible. you see ads in a site when in my book, were engineering company safe with the highways, think about all the pollution we could start because of the congestion that they are. city city after city, direct inverse proportion between traffic congestion and pollution because if you remove from u.k. people jayakumar miles because the only constraint to congestion is congestion. the only constraint to driving is congestion. if you're under that, more people come because you do not pay the true cost of motoring and that's the hidden secret behind the demand discussion that we only pay a fraction of the real cost of motoring and we

certainly don't pay very much of the social cost of motoring, which are astronomical. i love cars, but there are limits. what i take one more question and then we'll call it a day. we'll go right here in the front your clothes. >> speaking of cars, portman has recently seemed a lot of introduction of housing on the eastside along transit areas with little or no parking. how does that translate into workability? >> this is an issue in washington d.c. what's the relationship -- both cities have i caught up with yet, introducing affordable housing that sound transit lines so that people who live on it don't need to bone cars actually not requiring the housing to provide cars from which of course is pillar number one of

free parking if you stop making an artificial floor for the amount of parking people provide, the free market will determine the amount people provide into it much more properly than any government agency. in d.c., we see this happening. new buildings come in with much less parking than they would otherwise understandingly says in the tennis promise they will never park a car in the street. it's a little bit hard to enforce and i think it was happening here in portland, local residents are worried about it and they're fighting it because they imagine these people moving into new apartments will bring cars will park on their streets and will compete with them for their parking spaces. there's a theoretical suggestion that this is not a problem. it's a very real fact that they are worried about it and it may indeed have been and that's why it is important to have a management -- that's a

management question. i do not believe as walk friendly as i am, i don't believe that we need to take away anyone's existing parking to make these places function at their best. again, i do about the details in portland, but if you were to initiate the proper parking permit system for those who have on street that allows them to park in the new people moving into the snow park in buildings don't get that permit, the survey to give them the peace of mind that their parking will remain there. i'm not a parking expert. maybe bring in don sheep from ucla. this is one thing i've learned about from studying their work, but the key to making transitions is going to be not a design key because having the no parking at transit is a good solution, but it's a management solution. i know some of you disagree with

me, so it's a great place to start. thanks so much for listening. i really enjoyed it. [applause] >> this event has had phenomenal. we've had more companies and÷b÷b more spaces, more innovation anb excitement ever i can r÷becall.b the chairman made a huge÷b÷b announcement expanding unlike inspector.÷b not only for wi-fi, but all products you can invasion, the first great product was a garage door opener. >> here at ces, does washington understand this world? >> update you think we do indeed here, interacting with people who make these devices and provide services as a part of that enables us to understand

the effects of our decisions are going to be. when we talk about spectrum in washington, it's often in the abstract the spectrum crunch and not enough of this service at that service. when you come here and see this possible, we were able to see a wi-fi enabled chip that could allow you to have 300 plus megabits per second of data. that would've value to watch hdtv on the wireless device very easily. >> we decide to elegy and policy for the first in a series of this year's electronic show. monday night at 8:00 eastern on c-span 2. >> baratunde or stand is the author of "how to be black." how do you be black? >> and it helps so much to be born black. that's the most reliable way of being black. this doesn't convert you from

non-black to black. it's not a big genetic modification program. it's a mental intellectual exercise in storytelling and hilarity. >> was one example of being black in your view? did not destroy the book is mostly a memoir. i grew up during the crack wars in the mayor in columbia heights before it got amateur station on target. that journey from very political but our family and legacy of my ancestors and harvard, that's the back of the boat. then there's lessons i learned along the way, how to be the black friend. how to speak for black people asked to represent everybody we kind of look like. how to be the next but president, which is applicable during the season. this contains those lessons, with black experts identified primarily their entire diocese filed who really know they're talking about.

>> when he graduated from college and your mother said we did it, is that an example of being black? >> that's an example of being proud and probably generous for what we meant. when she said that, she was talking both about our efforts is a tidy family company, her, my older sister and the people that came before us and the stage that was set to allow someone who's a descendent of a great-grandfather and slavery to congratulate from that place at harvard university, enter comedy and satire. i worked at that time in mocking the government and society than the sight of ancestors. a huge arc of progress and opportunity within that story. when she said we did it, she meant all those things. >> was your day job now? >> i don't have a day job now. i like to start a company called cultivated weight review products that combine humor and technology to tell better

stories, make the world is horrible. so day job, my job, in between sleep job is how i think about right now. i want to be one of those makers, not one of those takers. >> baratunde thurston, how is having a black president affected your work? >> against it when other job accessible now. you can add that to the list of start an athlete and sassy black woman president. that's cool that i expanded the range for one job. this is a fun and proud image and also created some challenges the simplicity of president obama as a symbol of massive racial progress is often overstated so it makes the argument are complicated when people say our work is finished as america and the great racial project of equal opportunities, it really isn't. having a black president is a shortcut to avoiding difficult conversations and work we still do as a